For the past few years, I had been battling an ongoing illness and chronic depression, and I had been severely neglecting my studies and future career goals. That made me feel guilty on top of everything else as I wasn't always like this.
Now that I'm getting better, I've been revisiting the research I managed to do for my thesis (for which I had written some of my critical component), and now I am working on my creative component, a novel which I am calling Chords In The Storm. It's about a rock and roll musician who is drawn into a fantasy realm where she will battle chauvinists, demons, and other nasties with her use of musical magic and song sorcery to bring emancipation to the oppressed. I've completed my prologue and the first chapter, and I'm working on the rest from now on. I've already received some nice and positive feedback from a colleague of mine, one of our postgraduates, a nice lady named Gay Lynch whose own thesis novel is being published and launched this week. Hopefully someday, people will read my work in print.
The critical component will be an exegesis on strong and inspirational female musicians like The Go-Go's and The Bangles, as well as the feminist themes of certain fantasy novels like The Spellsong Cycle novels by L.E Modesitt Jr..
Here's what Gay said about my writing which is inspiring me to do more work. It's nice to have friends who encourage and inspire you:
****Michael, you certainly have a good grasp of the language of fantasy. You use it well, particularly for evocation. There are also some nice narrative hooks to draw the reader in. Reading aloud usually sorts out any issues of syntax or clarity. It’s getting a moment alone to do it, which is tricky. Keep going. Ben is obviously going to be your most informed reader. The rest of us (who don’t read a lot of fantasy) can only enjoy the story. I like it. The language is rich and, in many cases, dark and resonant of dreams and films. Keep writing, and polish the bits you’ve written as a warm-up activity. Most writers find it hard to begin, and the editing gets them going.****
This reminded me of a time when I did good work all the time, before my *troublesome times* as I now call them, and makes me feel that perhaps my talent and passion haven't left me - they've just been buried under a lot of nasty stuff that I'm becoming free of. We have a wonderful group of academics and postgraduates and I am glad I can feel like I can belong once more.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Favorite quote from 2007: Some people are like a Slinky ... not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.
Hopefully soon, you guys will get the chance! I'm slowly working more on my writing, so perhaps in a year or so, my book will be finished, but in the meantime, once I've done more, I'll post some sections of my work for you all. Maybe Jon will read my work too!
